On the run

This weekend Dawn spent most of it studying for her exams on Monday. However, to make sure that her brain did not turn to mush from all of the studying, we did take a couple of breaks.

Saturday night we went to the Light Boat Parade at Tempe Town Lake and Tempe Beach Park. They had some booths, food, and stuff at the park. However the main attraction was the piles of “snow” setup for kids. Rule number one for these areas was “no throwing snowballs”, so all of the kids (and adults) were throwing snowballs. Then we walked along the lake to watch the fifty or so boats that were decorated for the parade. There were a lot of different boats, but some of the more interesting ones were the kayaks that were decorated with lights. The parade was capped off by fireworks. I have added some pictures to the photo album of the parade.

Then Sunday morning we ran in the Fiesta Bowl 5K. In our quest to get in shape, we picked this race about two months ago as a motivator to keep going. First off, today was cold. It has been the coldest day of the “winter” and race temps were in the upper 40s. I had promised to stay with Dawn no matter what during the race and she promised that we would not finish last. I am happy to say that both promises were kept. We are planning to do some more events like this in the future as milestones to our long term goals.

Thanksgiving... and catching up

Finally getting caught up with the blog. We had planned to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner outside; however, it actually rained for the first time since before Labor Day. So we had to settle for eating inside.

Things have been going along pretty well. I still bike to and from work everyday and Dawn is finishing up her classes for the semester. The girls are busy with school and holiday concerts and we have the tree up in the living room. We fortunate that our tree just barely fit in there.

Ironman Weekend

The Ironman Triathlon was held in Arizona on Sunday, November 23. The Ironman Arizona is one of six races in the US that is a qualifier for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Dawn and I decided it would be fun to volunteer to help with the race as a way to meet folks here in the valley.

Lindsey had been sick that week so when we went to the volunteer’s meeting on Saturday, she was not able to go with us. Because of that, she did not go with us to hike to the top of “A” Mountain at ASU after the meeting, but Lexi joined us at the top.

Fortunately Lindsey was feeling better and was able join us on Sunday. We were part of Run Aid Station 5, one of the food and water stations on the marathon course. The runners had already completed a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike ride by the time they got to us. They had 17 hours to complete the course, but the winner took not quite eight and a half hours.

We had a good time and will probable help again next year. I have added some pictures to the ASU and AZ Fun photo albums.